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Chapter 5: God Has No Hands

Osho,You seem to me the only person in the world who never disappoints me, never abandons me, never lies to me, never frustrates me. The love, joy, bliss and ecstasy I sometimes feel inside myself when I feel close to you, feels like the only real thing in the world.Why is it that I’ve always to be so frustrated with the outside world before I am ready to look inside?

It is easy with me not to be disappointed, not to be frustrated, for the simple reason that you never expect anything from me. The whole problem is: the moment you start expecting, you are bound to be disappointed, frustrated.

With me, your love is not that of expectation, not that of any demand. Whatever I have, I give you - not because you expect it, but because I am so overburdened with it. It is so abundant in me that I have to give - it does not matter to whom; whoever is ready to receive, I am available.

It is not something in me that does not disappoint you; it is something in you that does not expect anything from me. The day you do not expect anything from the world, there will be no frustration for you.

Being with a master, you have to learn just a simple lesson: why you are so ecstatic, why you are so happy. Your happiness, your ecstasy, is not dependent on me; I am no more than an excuse. It is your own. Just behave with the outside world in the same way as you behave with me, and you will be surprised: the same people, the same situations which have been very frustrating, disappointing, are no more so. On the contrary, they become a tremendous source of nourishment.

It all depends on you - not on me.

That is a fallacy, and if you go to your so-called priests, preachers, they will all say you are happy because of them - because of Jesus Christ, because of Gautam Buddha, because of the great tradition you belong to. They go on poisoning you. It is very fulfilling to their egos that so many people are happy because of them. The reality is - you are not happy because of anybody else.

At least I can say to you that you are not ecstatic because of me. You are ecstatic because you don’t have any expectations from me. Learn the lesson, and use it in the outside world, in your other relationships. Don’t expect, don’t demand. Give as much as you can, and never even think of your reward.

Even your greatest saints are not in the purest state of consciousness; they are hoping and expecting that for all their austerities, for all their so-called virtues, they will be immensely rewarded in the other world.

I want you to remember it: all these saints are going to be very disappointed in the other world. Here, they suffer in order to be fulfilled in the other world; and in the other world they will suffer because the mind that demands, the mind that expects, can never be blissful - either in this world or in any other world.